Hope and Faith
by extraordinarynow
Summary: 'What if there were a team of young cops who haven't been bought yet? Not jaded, not corrupted, she filled with hope and faith in the system' Zadie Scott aka Scottie. Fifth recruit to Unit Alpha of the Gotham City Police Department Strike Force.
1. INTRODUCTION

Hi all!  
New story which I'm really excited about because I've finally returned to watching Gotham to find there are now 4 seasons!

I am only on Season 2, so that is where I'm setting this fic, and it should stick to the tv storyline pretty well as I'm planning on writing as I watch (though I do binge so that's a guiding statement!)

For some context:

The OC is a fifth recruit to Unit Alpha of the GCPD Strike Force, and at the beginning she is in a relationship with Luke Garrett, one of the other recruits.

Obviously I don't want to post any spoilers, but as the fic goes on it will be less about them romantically and move onto the OC's development.

Anyway feedback would be appreciated. Not written in first person for a while!

Thanks! x


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 : Recruited**

I remember the day James Gordon walked into the Academy.

Everyone knew who he was, or remembered him, and though his photograph was on the wall of fame in the entrance, I had never expected that in person he would seem just like his picture; stern, rigid and serious.  
I was lucky that Luke hadn't noticed him, and that he was spotting me on the weights because if he hadn't been there I'd have been crushed by a bench press that was almost my own body weight. His hands guided the dumbbells back onto the stand before grinning down at me. God he was beautiful.  
"Had enough?" he challenged.  
I shook my head with a breathless laugh, I one hundred percent _had_ had enough, but I was never going to admit that to him.  
"Look," I said, slowly pushing myself up to sit, and nodding across to where Gus was shaking the hand of the new Captain, and then Gordon.  
Luke's eyes followed my nod and he straightened his back a little, nudging me on the shoulder he shot me a look of urgency.  
"You spot me now," he said, giving me a shove to make me move off the bench that was a little harder than necessary.  
As I stood up, he chuckled, and with a glance over his shoulder gave my backside a cheeky smack before he took my place on the bench. A small eye roll was all it took for him to get into focus, and I stood behind his head, desperately trying not to watch his body as it tensed.  
"Showing off isn't going to help you," I said with a grin, holding out my hands in case he slipped, but he wouldn't, he never did. The fact that he lifted the dumbbells with such ease just served as a reminder that he could lift my body weight without breaking a sweat- it was undeniably attractive.  
"Shut up Scottie," he hissed back, "add some more will you?"

While Luke bench-pressed weights like his life depended on it, I half-watched Captain Barnes and James Gordon head to the ring to watch Josie. A small smile flitted across my lips, if they were looking to be entertained, seeing Josie K.O the knuckle head she was practicing with today would be a great show.  
"What are they doing?" asked Luke, his teeth gritted together as he went for another lift, holding it for as long as he could before he let it crash to a rest on the bar.  
"They're going to see Josie Mac," I said, before reaching down and pinching his sweaty cheek, "my turn."  
Luke chuckled throatily again as he reached for his towel and wiped his face, he stood slowly and glanced over once, trying not to appear too interested in Gotham Police Department's leading men.  
I lay down on the bench again and he changed the weights, and I focused on his face for information while I began to lift.  
I could tell the exact moment when Josie landed the winning hit, Luke couldn't help but show any emotion he felt all over his face, and then it changed. He looked down at me, suddenly paying attention to how much weight I was carrying and my technique. The urgency in his eyes made me panic, but not nearly as much as Gus Freeman's voice which called my name.  
"Zadie Scott!" he called, and for the second time I was thankful to have Luke guide the weight back to the resting bar, "get over here."  
I blinked up at my boyfriend and he nodded, only slightly, only so I could see, and offered me his hand to pull me up. For some reason I didn't take it, I just grabbed the towel from the floor and wiped my face and hands, padding over to Gus.

They sat me down at a table, Barnes and Gordon, and scrutinised me. I just stared back, I was used to being underestimated, whether it was for my size or for my strength, or for my intelligence.  
"Zadie Scott-" Barnes began.  
"Call me Scottie, please," I replied.  
Gordon blinked at me, and I continued to stare back.  
"Scottie…" Barnes continued, "You flew through high school- finished a year early, you had a college sponsorship, why are you here?"  
Then it was my turn to blink, "My mother was murdered in this city," I said without emotion: it was rare for me to get distressed about it anymore. "My father was a dirt-bag who owed the wrong sort of people money," I added, "when he skipped town the debt transferred to my mother, who didn't have the means to pay it."  
I ran a hand through my hair, the story had been well publicised at the time, perhaps if the Capitain thought hard he would remember the news articles about the woman found crammed into the oven of her own bakery.  
"I ran around on the streets until a police officer caught up with me and put me into the foster system," I finished, "and I fought so that one day I could maybe do the same, or even better, make sure that nothing like that happens in the first place."  
Gordon nodded once, and I was dismissed.

I had later learned that when asked the same question, Luke had replied almost the same answer. That he wanted to make sure that what happened to his father never happened again.

They brought me back in, to Luke's interview- if you would call it that- an interrogation maybe. I didn't look at him as I sat down.  
"We are considering you both for a new unit in the Gotham City Police Department," Barnes said, and I continued to stare into his eyes, only breaking focus to assess James Gordon's reactions, "we have learned that you have been dating almost the entire time you have been at this academy, and we want to know if it would be a problem for you two to work together…"  
"Negative sir," I replied quickly, knowing that if I wanted my opinion to be heard, I would have to get it in fast. Growing up with several foster brothers, and then all the lads at the academy, it was a case of getting in the first punch and making it a good one. "I'm sure you have our field status reports, we work together on almost every case file, we're a good team…"  
"A great team," Luke added, before glancing across at me. I still daren't look him in the eye.  
"What we mean," Gordon stated, pressing his hands together and leaning over the table, "Is that if you two break up are we going to be dealing with two heartbroken kids who let it affect their job."  
"With all due respect, sir," I said, narrowing my eyes a little, "doesn't your girlfriend work at the GCPD?"  
Gordon narrowed his own eyes back at me, and I felt a little kick from Luke under the table. His narrowed eyes slowly turned into a smirk, and he gave a shrug of one shoulder to Captain Barnes.  
"We had always planned to go and work at the same precinct," Luke finally spoke up, "it would be an honour to come and serve under you at Gotham City, but with respect…" he paused, and I willed him to keep it together, "we come as a pair or not at all."

"Garrett. Pinkney. Josie. Martinez. Scottie," Gordon called and each of us stepped forward in full uniform.  
Barnes then stepped forward, "You swear to honour that badge with your life?"  
"Yes sir!" we sang in reply.  
"Congratulations, you are now unit Alpha of the GCPD Strike Force under the command of Detective James Gordon, you will answer only to him and him only to me, dismissed."  
We turned, and marched out, and just like that, we were recruited.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 : Flashback**

The morning I signed up at the Academy, I was assigned a tall blonde boy- Simon, who was to give me a tour and then help me with my paperwork.  
At some point around lunch though, he ditched me to go and hang out with his friends, so I'd eaten alone. I dumped my tray and headed towards the courtyard. Smiling at my guide as if to say 'Don't worry about me, I'm just a first year newbie with no idea where I'm going.'  
I took a gulp of air, wondering where the nearest bathrooms were, and I felt him walk up behind me and spun around to ask.  
"Where's the bath-" I reached out for an arm and noticed too late that it wasn't in uniform. It's wasn't Simon. This person's arm was bare. There was a static shock when I touched it.  
"Oh, you're not my person." I looked up, black jeans and white t-shirt with a backpack on one shoulder. Eyes so deep, a weatherworn, golden brown. He was covered in sweat and slightly out of breath. I inhaled sharply. "My guide person I mean. You're not him."  
His eyes were a vice, "Are you sure?"  
I nodded. He looked me up and down, indiscreetly.  
"Who are you?"  
"I'm new."  
"Garrett!" another guide shouted from across the courtyard, "this way please."  
And then all I could see was the back of his head.

The time came and went. I was accepted into Gotham Police Academy, and found myself alone and overwhelmed on the first few days of orientation. I moved in my things, met my roommate- Josie Mac, and tried to settle into a strict routine of exercise, weaponry training, and theoretical knowledge. And sweaty-boy, Garrett? I didn't see him again. I thought maybe he didn't even go to the Academy, that he'd been lost. But then I came in to pick up my gun for the range and he was there. I put my head down when I saw him, he was another recruit.

"What's that guys name?" I asked one day in the canteen, "the one who doesn't talk to anyone?"  
Josie had turned not only into a dorm-mate, but a friend, an ally. She was the only one who would run track with me and not get upset when she lost, and I was the only one who would join her in the ring to spar.  
She could have been a supermodel, except she was barely five foot three. She knew everyone.  
"Who?"  
"Garrett?" I asked, unsure if I was even saying the remnant I had of his name right.  
"You mean Luke?" she asked, grinning, "I went to high school with him."  
"Yeah."  
"Let me give you a clue Scottie, Luke Garrett will eat you for dinner and spit you out."  
"You mean he's not nice?"  
"Oh he's too nice, if you get where I'm going with this.. you should ignore him."

Ignore him. That's what I did. When Luke came into the morning seminars and took his seat, always at the front, when he pulled up on his pushbike in front of the gym, when he pointed out that the research we were studying was the most current, I looked away.  
But I started to hear things, all of it unverifiable ad improbable. Luke was a musician, a poet, a carpenter. He had lived all over the country, he was born and raised in Gotham. He was bisexual, he slept with everyone, he slept with no one. His father was a crime lord, his father was in Gotham General having been beaten up by a crime lord. He was an ex-heroin addict, he was sober, he was always a little drunk.

He was always in the library when I was. It was the most neglected part of the Academy, in my opinion. Most of the cadets were obsessed with fitness, with making sure they had speed, stamina, that this was survival of the fittest and they were the ones at the top of the survival pyramid. But I knew that you had to keep your brain sharp too, there was no graduation guaranteed at the Academy. I was the fastest, out of the girls anyway. Some of the boys still out-ran me on the track field, and since I wasn't the best-shot, or the strongest, I would have to settle for being the smartest.

If he rolled up his shirtsleeves you could see the edges of his muscles that spoke to another, out of uniform, private body that he kept. It was the sight of this arm resting on the table in front of reams of half scribbled on paper on the library desk that changed me.  
I remembered that static shock when I touched him. I felt the shock in my mouth. His inappropriate arm and the paper all around him. His manner too casual, too condescending.  
"That's a lot of paper to waste," I said. My voice surprised me, ringing out over my vow of silence.  
He looked at me. Perhaps it was raining outside, a stifling storm. Perhaps someone struck a match and held it to my cheek. Perhaps someone cleaved into my life into before and after. He looked at me. And then he laughed. From that moment on he became unbearable to me.

Each day after that, he swapped seats to sit opposite me. If I asked him a question about the assignment, he would answer. If I asked him a question about himself, he just ignored me.

I don't think I explained it well before. His teeth were perfect, and when we finished track he would always pull off his shirt, his throat pulsing like something that had been caged. His hair was irreverent after a work-out. He drank water like he was a goldfish. When he looked at you, he was the only person who understood you, sipped you, and swallowed like water. Some days his eyes were brown, sometimes they were black, but they were gold in the centre which is entirely different. When he laughed it was rare and explosive. When he rested his eyes from reading his eyelids would flutter like he was dreaming. When the recruits were together socially he could fill a room, or make everyone disappear. He would disappear too, turn himself off like a switch and I stood in the dark, waiting.

One day, he hiccupped.  
Had he hiccupped? Not possible, I thought, everything he did was measured and controlled. He lifted his head and stared at the ceiling. I stared at him.  
"Hey you know I've got his method…" I said, but he shook his head immediately and kept looking at the ceiling.  
"If you hold your-"  
"No" he replied, and I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, was this a joke? It was the fucking hiccups.  
"Do you want some water?" I asked, noticing his bottle was empty and reached for it, I could go and fill it up in the library entrance.  
"I can handle this," he said seriously.  
"Is this a joke?" I asked.  
"I don't like them."

He hit his hand on the desk and I froze. He gripped the book he'd been reading with his hand and shut his eyes, taking long breaths. He hiccupped again.  
I went to refill the water bottle and returned quickly to find him still giving small hiccups, lifting him from his chair. He didn't look back at me, so I used the opportunity to sneak back with purpose, stealth. Once I was close enough behind him to see the hairs on his arms I sprang.  
"BOO!" I slammed my hands onto his shoulders. I laughed. I stopped when he turned his face slightly, he was not laughing, he looked murderous.  
"Wow sorry," I said, slamming the bottle down beside him.  
"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, and I rolled my eyes, grabbing my things.  
"A simple thank you would be enough," I snapped, walking away quick before I took a swing at him.  
As I walked I cursed myself. He should be the embarrassed one. The fucking hiccups... what a little boy. He should be the one running away. But no, it was me.

For two week he didn't speak to me. Luke was somehow able to simultaneously ignore me as well as put me at the centre of everything he did. In the boxing ring he made sure to pair with me and he hit me without reservations. Assembling our weapons he was sure to sit himself next to me and make sure he won. The only thing I could do better was drills on the track... I was twice as fast at running and always left him in the dirt, which managed to infuriate him more.

One day, after a practice mission, I cornered him. He had been totally off that day, and while he'd made sure he'd been on my team, he'd also made no effort to cover me and I'd been shot by Sal Martinez.. it had hurt.  
"What the hell is going on with you?" I demanded at the end of the session, as everyone piled to the changing rooms.  
He stared past me, like I was a fragment of his imagination, but today I wasn't having it. I was sweaty, annoyed, and my back hurt from the bullet lodged in my vest. I didn't let him ignore me.  
"Don't ignore me!" I scowled, snatching hold of his arm and insisting he face me. His face was thunder.  
"Is this just about the hiccups thing or did I do something to offend you? What is it that's so annoying about me?"

He cracked.  
"You don't annoy me Scottie, you _distract_ me. You pull my focus. And I try not to lean into it, but when you're around... you're all I can think about."  
"I-" I tried to respond but couldn't. How could anyone respond to that?  
"Just leave me alone," he sighed, and walked away leaving me stood alone.

* * *

The bar was four deep. The crowd was full of professionals ready to let loose. TGIF right? I must have heard that one thousand times that night.

I split from the group to find the bathroom, limbs in my face, my hands wedging into the crowd.  
Someone grabbed my fingers. I yanked my arm back and when I spun around I half-yelled, "Hey get off!"  
I forgot how tall he was. In the days since the shooting incident Luke hadn't been in class at all.  
When I turned he was up against me like it was the subway at rush hour, my nose lined up with his clavicle. His leather jacket blotted my vision. Someone pushed him from behind any my nose touched his chest. I looked up at him. Shit.  
"Hi," I said.  
"Hey there," he said.  
I swayed on my feet. He didn't move to go anywhere. Not to the bar, not to the bathroom, he wasn't going anywhere. He'd sought me out.  
He sighed, "I'm sorry about how I acted in the library. It's a thing. Since I was little, I freak out when I can't catch my breath. Anyway, I wanted to say thank you, for curing the hiccups. And to say sorry for the other day."  
"It's ok," I replied, "are you going to come back to class?"  
"I like that."  
I gulped, "Like what?"  
"That you're concerned about whether I go to class."  
"Sometimes," I said, "I feel like we're talking. But we're not talking."  
He reached out and grabbed a piece of my hair. He twirled it around his finger. I was not breathing.  
"Sometimes I feel like I make you mad," I sighed, "or that I'm going mad."  
"Oh, we're all mad here," he nodded, killing me with his grin and his wolfish cheekbones.  
"Lewis Carrol?"  
"That's a problem," he chuckled, letting go of my hair and bopping me on the nose, "I don't date girls who read."  
He smiled, knowing he had me. Something expert in him, wrapping and unwrapping me. I looked away. I looked back, I started to say something, then stopped. I moved towards the bathroom but didn't move.  
"You're confused," he nodded, "I can see it all over your face."  
"Why would you want to date me? I thought you wanted me to stay away from you?"  
"It's my fault your confused."  
His hand moved to my cheek, and when he kissed me I said 'Oh god' into his mouth, but that, like everything else, was swallowed up.

The days that followed where chaos. I couldn't write, I couldn't run, I couldn't listen to the instructors on the gun range. Everywhere I went he was there now. His 'behind yous' became demonic. They came frequently and always unexpectedly.  
"Behind you," Luke said in the corridor as I rejuggled things in my locker.  
"Behind you," he said in line at the canteen.  
First his shoulder, then the expanse of his chest. His thumb grazed the back of my arm, I always held my breath until the whole thing was over.

"Behind you" he said. I froze in the library archives where I'd been searching for a case file. My arm had been raised and I collected it at my side, stepping closer to the bookshelf to wait for him to pass.  
He pushed me forward, and caught my hips with his hands. Body pressed against my back. Anyone else would have let me get out of the tight aisle, anyone else would have waited, but he rested his chin on my shoulder, and I never wanted to move.  
"Let's go," he growled into my ear.  
"Where?"  
"To get something to eat, in the city," he said slowly, I could feel his smile against my neck.  
I reached for his hand and he led us out of the library's basement.

Sat in a dirty booth with two dirty burgers, I finally let myself breath around him. This was my favourite place in the whole of Gotham, a diner fit for a one-day would-be cop.  
"Why are you so mean to me?" I asked him.  
"I'm mean because you're innocent and need toughening up- or you're never going to be a cop," he replied with a mouthful of food.  
I laughed, "I'm not innocent just because I'm optimistic. Just because you're terrified of optimistic people, people who remind you of what it was like to have ideals, faith, freedom. I just remind you of the losses you've taken in your life as you've turned into this cynical, numb, boring person. You're jealous, that's why you hate me."  
He put down his burger and stared at me.  
"Do people tend to underestimate you?"  
I shrugged.  
"You know," he said, serious and leaned forward. Our knees touched under the table and I could see the pores on his face he was so close. "I get this feeling like you're very powerful. I felt it when we kissed, and I felt it when you were speaking just then. Like I tapped into an electrical current. But then I watch you and you spend your time trying so hard to get to graduation, that most of the time you hold it back."  
I felt like my head was a vase, sometime breakable that had a crack in it, and the crack was spreading.  
"I can't keep up with your mood changes. You're wearing me out, honestly."  
"I want to take you back to the dorms and wear you out, since we're being honest," he replied.  
I couldn't believe him. Josie had been right, he was going to chew me up and spit me out again.  
Regardless, I went for a walk with him around the park, hand in hand. I let him walk me back home and he kissed me in the corridor until my lips were numb. Then he went back to his dorm.

He started to run with me in the evenings. He started to answer the personal questions I asked him. Unless we were in our separate classes we were together.  
We went to bars in his old neighbourhood. They were all old, the gloss worn off the bar-tops, peeling paint, chipped tiles. No DJ, no cocktails. Everyone knew him or knew his family.  
One rare afternoon off, we sat with the bar owner's Doberman snoozing under the table and he told me about how his father had been beaten half to death by a mob, and how that had motivated him to join the Academy.  
I told him about my mother, and how she'd been killed to pay a debt. I told him that one day I went to my mother's work after school, just like I always did to score a hot chocolate and a pastry straight out of the baker's oven. Only that day I arrived and police were storming the place and a lady from forensics greeted me with a cup of water instead of my hot chocolate, and I found out that my mother had been baked in the industrial oven, not a croissant.  
And because, after my scum-bag father had left us with the debt that had come to have her murdered, she was all I had left and I was put into the foster system.  
He leaned towards me and whispered that he was sorry, and I whispered that it wasn't his fault, and a lock of hair fell into his eyes. He needed to get it cut, otherwise the trainers were going to give him a sanction for not having the standard hair cut all male recruits had. I pushed it back over his head, that's who I was now, the girl who got to fix his hair.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Strike Force**

The Gotham Police building was an impressive enough structure. I'd been inside only once before, when my mother had been killed. I'd only been a kid then, but the detailing of the ceiling and the large wooden desks that littered the floor had stuck with me. There was a balcony row which ran along two sides of the building, and I could remember watching the officers and officials up there years ago. I remember thinking that they were so important, so good at their job that they were the ones who got to stand up there and have everyone watch them, as though on a stage.  
Now it was me stood up there.

In a line with my four other graduates, we looked straight ahead and listened as Barnes addressed us with a welcome speech.

"A wise cop once said, if you catch a kid smashing a window, even a small one, bust him. If you let it slide, he'll smash another one, then he'll tag a wall, steal a bike, rob a store, maybe hold someone up."  
He paused and watched us carefully, as though daring any of us to disagree with him, "Crime unpunished is a crime in itself, this city is bleeding to death from the amount of free passes we hand out. Time to put a tourniquet over that wound. From now on, no one gets a free pass."

My eyes flickered only for a moment to watch Jim Gordon's reaction to all of this. Did he agree with Barnes? After all he'd been here long enough to see what had been going on, why had it taken Barnes coming in to put a stop to this? I briefly wondered whether Gordon had ever given out any free passes.

"What is a strike force for?" Barnes continued, "to send a message that this epidemic of lawlessness will no longer be treated, but extinguished. With extreme prejudice."

He gestured down to the table in front of us, "Gentlemen, ladies, your new uniforms."

We all looked down at the new black kit we'd been provided with. Down the line Luke immediately reached for the gun and started to assemble it. I picked through the uniform more carefully, fingertips stroking over the GCPD lettering stamped to the back of the bullet proof vest. Slowly, I pulled off my hoodie and put on the regulation long sleeved top, I strapped on my vest, it fit perfectly.  
Josie nudged me and I shot her a smile, this was exactly what we'd been training for.

A man approached, and we all snapped into a bolt upright position again. He informed Barnes about a call, Councillor Caulfield was dead. First Galavan was attacked, now Caulfield. Barnes, Gordon and Bullock all left hurriedly, leaving us to finish collecting our things and moving them down to the locker rooms below the station.

It came back to us that Caulfield had been stabbed, repeatedly, and had probably died drowning in her own blood. A witness had reluctantly given up that the man was small, dressed fancy and walked funny. There was one name that came to mind… Penguin.

"But why would he want to mess with the election? He has enough power of his own surely?" I asked Luke and Sal as we gathered to make a pot of coffee.  
"No clue, but you know who the next target probably is…" Sal replied.  
"Hobbs," Luke nodded.

Jim only confirmed our suspicions when he returned. Hobbs was the next target, and we were on duty that night to steak out his apartment block. Hobbs was old-school, he firmly believed that the city needed him and was reluctant to take protection, not from the police, or from his team of mobsters that he kept on his payroll. He wouldn't go into hiding just because of some attacks on other councilmen or women, he wasn't a coward.

We set off to protect Hobbs that night, while piling into the van Luke gave me a smile, and I returned it weakly before looking out of the window of the bullet proof vehicle. The closer we got to the building block, the louder the sounds reverberated through Gotham's streets. Gunfire.

Flicking the siren on, the van streamed through the alleyway, and pulled up just in time to see Hobbs fleeing towards his car, only one bodyguard with him for back up. Where were the others? I didn't have to wait long to find out.

We all jumped out of the car, using the doors for protection, and Jim shouted over the truck's loud-speaker, "GCPD put down your weapons."

He emerged slowly out of the darkness. A tall man, two guns raised, the light from the building's windows reflecting on his bald head which I knew Luke would have found comical if he hadn't immediately open fired. A second passed and Jim returned the shot but hesitated, as though he recognised the target.

I stared at the back of Jim's head, then glanced to Harvey. Who even was in charge here?  
Then Luke's voice sounded, cool and calm, instructive, "Fan out, flank him from both sides, catch him in our cross fire."  
Harvey nodded before shouting, "Yeah! Do that!"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

We spread out in formation. Covered by Jim, Luke went first. I ran down to the left, using the scaffolding as my cover, and Josie swung open a car door and ducked behind it. The assassin was relentless, even against all five of us plus Jim and Harvey. Josie's car window smashed but she ducked in time.

Preoccupied by our fire, the assassin couldn't stop Martinez covering Hobbs and pushing him back towards our vehicle. I thought we had the assassin as he jumped behind a car, but within seconds he was back out, firing like I'd never seen anyone fire before.

Time moved slowly, as he took step by step towards us. A bullet smashed Josie to the floor, and we all looked to Jim, bewildered. He wasn't firing. He wasn't doing anything.

I climbed through the scaffolding and shot, and so did Martinez. Sal never failed to hit a target.  
A shot ripped through the target and I swear I heard the assassin groan, "Unexpected…"

He fell and I started to run towards him but was stopped short first by the sound of a gun shot, then by a smack in the ear.  
Holy shit. Had I been shot in the head?

Time continued to tick by slowly. Though in reality it was a matter of seconds.  
A loud ringing in my left ear. Luke's voice.  
"Zadie are you alright!?"  
I frowned, why was he calling me by my first name? Why was I so wet?

Water. Water was everywhere, a pipe had burst and it was streaming across the alley, creating a white curtain that the assassin moved backwards through and disappeared.

"Move, move, move," Luke said, and moved past me through the curtain of water with Pinkney to go after him while I turned. Seeing Josie on the floor snapped my senses back into focus.  
She gasped, and with water covering us both I ripped off her vest. I pulled her to her feet, she panted and I placed a gentle hand on her back while she leaned on me.  
Everyone gathered around us, "The shooter got away sir."  
"You just met Victor Zsasz," Gordon replied, "he works for Penguin these days."  
Harvey only reiterated what I'd been asking earlier that day, "What the hell is Penguin playing at?"

Back in the van I reached for a canteen of water and handed it to Josie, she sipped thirstily. Luke sat the other side of me, and shook his head, water droplets sprayed off hitting me in the face. He was panting, but I knew that it wasn't from the physical activity, it was adrenalin. It was in the air, a buzz, we all felt it, it was electric.

That night Luke and I barely got through the door to our apartment before tearing each other's clothes off.

Later, in the dark with my back to him, his arms curled around me, he kissed my left ear-lobe.  
"Does it hurt?" he whispered, and I shook my head.  
"No, the blast just took me by surprise a little."  
"When the gun went off I thought he'd hit both Josie and you," he sighed, burrowing his face into my hair.  
"That's hardly you're fault," I replied, knowing that he felt responsible since he'd suggested we fan out.  
"No," he agreed, "it's Gordon's really, he had no control over the situation."  
I nodded in reply and kissed his knuckles one by one, "We'll see what he has to say for himself tomorrow."

* * *

"That bullet had your name on it Jose," Pinkney chuckled as we all gathered round to examine the hole in her bullet vest. It was for the first time, and the closest any of us had ever come to real death. We'd all taken bullets before, on the training ground at the Academy. We all knew that it felt like being hit with the end of a lead pipe, that you would fall on your ass and have the wind knocked out of you. This was different. It was Zsasz or us, he wasn't just shooting at Josie so she'd knew what the real thing would feel like, this was the real thing.

"Obviously," Josie chuckled.  
"Nah, I don't think so," Martinez smiled and patted her on the back.  
"I'm serious," Josie replied.  
"Hey you shouldn't be joking about near misses," Harvey said, "next bullet might get stuck right in your eye."  
We all fell silent, and Martinez nodded, "Yes sir," speaking for all of us, who were just relieved that we'd made it through our first outing as a group, "no joking."

Barnes entered, "Alright gather round…"  
"Today I'm giving the strike force its first real mission. Build a case to put away Gotham's enemy number one- time to take down the penguin."  
I shot Luke a look, and he nodded with a small smile, then I looked at Gordon.  
I could have been mistaken but I swear Gordon frowned.


End file.
